The three memoranda signed between various Greek governments and the creditor Troika have been one of the most important European political issues in this decade, generating a lot of journalistic and scholarly interest. This article presents findings from a framing analysis conducted on three mainstream Greek newspapers (Avgi, Kathimerini, Ta Nea). These frames were compared with the advocate frames promoted through the announcements of the four constant parties in the Greek Parliament throughout this period (PASOK, Nea Dimokratia, SYRIZA, KKE), in order to shed light on the range of democratic debate fostered by the media and the political opinions that were legitimated through their application in the press.

Starting with the first memorandum in 2010 the examination of frames from all three newspapers reveals the range of the debate. The memorandum is discussed mainly in terms of the division between those who are for it and against it, and its good and bad qualities. The framing of the newspapers follows the advocate frames of the two larger parties PASOK and ND, whereas SYRIZA, a marginal party at that point, also manages to be included, because it’s frames fit on the range of legitimate opinions. All the newspapers apply advocate frames by three out of the four major political parties, whereas none of them includes KKE frames. From a market perspective the positions of KKE are not interesting, as lower income workers form it’s main electoral base. Additionally, the examination of the exclusion of the frame from a political and ideological standpoint reveals the limits of the liberal consensus. The analysis of the frames in 2010 reveals that positions that promote a wider criticism of the capitalist mode of production fall outside the acceptable limits of debate. The main frames construct the debate around the issues of efficiency of the measures, their impact, and issues of sovereignty and democracy. The causal attribution dimension revolves around the political game with the parties accusing each other for the crisis, while there is also some blame attributed to the troika. Finally, the solutions discussed concern the future of the memorandum with positions ranging from the necessity of the successful implementation of the program, to its adjustment or complete cancelation. The application of frames is not identical by all newspapers, reflecting a multitude of evaluative positions. Nonetheless, the debate is set around the memorandum without addressing wider reaching topics and alternatives that would question the economic system, which was under a crisis globally. This framing of the debate cuts off the Greek crisis from the global developments and treats it as an issue of management of the system, to be solved by the system itself.

The debate around the memoranda in 2012 is constructed around four pillars. The first one concerns the memoranda, discussing their implementation, their impact, and issues of democracy and sovereignty. The causal attribution dimension is constructed around the government and the troika, shifting the blame for the outcomes of the memoranda. The solutions provided range from the implementation of the memorandum as it is, to its adjustment or complete cancelation. The second pillar concerns the negotiation between the Greek government and the troika and whether it is a hard or soft negotiation. Depending on the frame, blame is shifted between the government and the troika and solutions stem either from the government itself or from its replacement by SYRIZA. Furthermore, a discussion is formed around the European aspect of the crisis that was absent in the previous period. The final pillar concerns the rise of SYRIZA and that debate is structured around the possibility of Greece exiting the euro as an outcome of electing an antimemorandum party and the rise of populism in the country. The solutions suggest supporting parties that do not engage in populism and believe in Greece’s participation in the EU. Therefore, the framing of the debate in 2011/12 fosters a very polarized debate within very constrained limits and options. The discussion focuses on the memorandum itself, without criticizing or questioning the fundamentals of the economic system. The developments are not contextualized and are mainly discussed as part of the political game of the country. The European aspect of the crisis is introduced in this period, however, a polarized but strategically converging debate is constructed. The positions taken do not question participation in the EU, but only diverge on visions regarding its future, as well as the issue of Greece’s national currency albeit while remaining in the wider European framework. Frames questioning Greece’s participation in the EU, such as KKE’s, are muted, indicating where the limits of acceptable political discourse lie in this period.

The final period is 2015. A significant break in the construction of the debate around the memoranda takes place in 2015, due to SYRIZA’s ascent to power. The debate about the memoranda has moved on from the division between positions for or against the memoranda. The frames promoted by the parties against the memorandum are still applied, however since SYRIZA, the largest party sponsoring those frames, signs a new memorandum the situation changes. These frames are now less commonly applied, mainly sponsored by dissenting SYRIZA MPs and associated with a return to the national currency. Therefore these frames are moving towards the sidelines without an important political sponsor and because of their association with a widely unpopular exit from the Eurozone. The main framing topics in this period are the stance towards the government, the framing of the new memorandum and of the negotiation that brought it about. The debate remains very polarized and one could argue that the animosity of some outlets towards the new government has increased the seeming intensity of the confrontation. However, the political developments have further shrunk the limits of this confrontation, as after SYRIZA signs the third memorandum, the frames that are criticizing the memoranda are left without a significant political sponsor and are exiting the forefront of political confrontation. With the new focus of the debate being on the government, the crisis itself is leaving the media spotlight, despite the persistence of economic and social problems plaguing Greece. The wider and European implications of the Greek case are not discussed in this period, but even the management of the problems, namely the memoranda, is being normalized and naturalized. This is an outcome of the process of presenting a debate that is focused on the political managers of the memoranda, which is an even more simplistic view of the case of the Greek crisis and reflects the even more constrained limits of acceptable debate in 2015.

What the evolution of the framing of the debate around the Greek memoranda from 2010 to 2015 reflects is the power of the media to make those that are in appear as relevant, while those that are out have a much harder time to get their opinions through as they appear to be out of the conversation. Therefore, the press constructed highly polarized debates albeit within opinions that strategically converge presenting an image of a vibrant democratic debate, which however lacks both depth and substance.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

Christos Kostopoulos holds a PhD in Media and Communications awarded by the University of Leicester and a MSc in Global Studies awarded by Lunds Universitet. His research interests lie in the intersections of framing theory with political economy and the democratic role of the media.

]]>https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2019/05/15/a-polarized-yet-hollow-debate-the-journalistic-coverage-of-the-greek-memoranda/feed/06230Back to the roots: Why the UK should have a second referendumhttps://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2019/04/05/back-to-the-roots-why-the-uk-should-have-a-second-referendum/
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Fifteen years after the failure to adopt the European Constitution of 2004, the European political landscape has changed dramatically. Although this represented a major setback on the path of European integration, it would have been hard to find someone so pessimistic, as to predict the current state of the European Union two months out of the European Parliament Election.

In 2009, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force and until 2013 the EU experienced a major eastern enlargement of state membership. Together with the shocks of 2008’s global economic crisis, it is very likely that the Brexit vote in 2016 has been the greatest challenge the EU has faced so far. Nonetheless, given the current deadlock, and the House of Commons’ failure to define a way forward, the voices in favour of a second referendum have increased.

A more informed choice as a factor for legal and political legitimacy

A second referendum on Brexit would be democratic, legitimate and fair. Contrary to the argument that a second consultation would be undemocratic, the reality is that now the public is in a far better position to make an informed and realistic choice about leaving or staying in the EU.

When the British population first voted in 2016, it was yet unclear what Brexit would imply. A deal over Brexit could mean anything at the time. It was impossible to ascertain what a two-year process of negotiations between the UK and the EU would conclude. A political climate of false promises and disinformation led to the rise of the well-known concepts of ‘post-truth’ society and ‘fake news’, especially as the Cambridge Analytica scandal emerged. Compared to the first referendum, claims such as the Leave Campaign’s assertation that 350 million pounds a week would cease to go to Brussels and instead fund the NHS, would enjoy far less credibility during a second referendum campaign.

From a legal perspective, referenda – whether materially or formally founded – are a way to realize the pouvoir constituent (i.e. constituting power) of the Staatsvolk(the people), whose utilisation have special legitimacy in processes that represent a substantial change in rights and freedoms, and of the Rule of Law of a country. Yet, referenda per se need not be treated as unequivocally definitive in isolation of the matter and circumstance. Referenda can build a bridge between the lexlata and the lex ferenda, that is, what the law is and what the law should become. In law and in politics, however, questions of normativity should only reach a definitive character when they achieve a consequentialist level of wisdom that is proportional to the level of constitutional gravity of the question that is at stake. That is, there should be evidence at hand about the possible outcomes – such a Brexit deal – before the Staatsvolk can reach a definitive decision via a public consultation.

Given the higher state of information, one could even claim that a second referendum would be of a higher democratic and legal quality than the first one, on the basis of a meditated vote rather than the mere speculation of what leaving the EU might imply in particular. Further, comparatively, the repetition or non-definitive character of referenda is not a novelty in the international landscape, such as the double referendum in Norway on the accession to the EU, in Denmark on the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty and Ireland on the Treaty of Nice and the Lisbon Treaty.

A more legitimate decision for a stronger and certain mandate

After almost three years of negotiations and a triple rejection in parliament of Theresa May’s Brexit deal which reflects the complexity of Brexit both in legal and political terms, it will be harder to sell the false promises of the Brexit panaceato the degrees defended by Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson in the previous Brexit campaign. The populistic dreams of nationalist romanticists would now be less able to survive a referendum campaign, since they have been exposed to the complexities of an interconnected, supranationalised and internationalized world through the lengthy process of negotiation and recurrent deadlocks.

Indeed, a second referendum that consults on the public desirability of Brexit would increase certainty in both possible scenarios. In the scenario that the UK prefers to reject Brexit after having a tangible deal for leaving on the table, the UK population would draw the legitimate decision to correct a former state of thought that had been based on the speculation of what Brexit could potentially mean. On the other hand, it is possible that Leave wins again – as Labour MP Diane Abbott warned – and that the majority of the population is legitimately determined and certain that Brexit is the right path to follow having a tangible deal at hand. The Brexiteer’s argument that repeated consultations will be held until the preferred option of the EU wins is highly unlikely. In fact, if the Leave option wins again, the UK will have an unwavering mandate to leave the European Union and will be under unequivocal democratic pressure to pass the Brexit deal. It seems unimaginable that a third referendum could be held if Leave prevails in a second referendum.

A second plebiscite is a historical chance

Holding a confirmatory referendum over the Brexit deal was one of the eight proposals which were all rejected in the indicative votes held in the House of Commons. The proposal which was defeated by the smallest margin would call for a post-Brexit customs union with the EU, maintaining tariff-free trade. Yet, as the deadlock over a comprehensive Brexit deal prevails, the voices in favour of a second referendum are increasing. Perhaps the best way to give an end to the Brexit process – whether leaving or staying – is to return to how it started: holding a referendum. This time, the plebiscite would offer a level of tangible knowledge (through the specific clauses of the proposed Brexit deal) about the legal and political implications, which is proportionally appropriate to the legal and political importance as well as the historical responsibility involved in leaving or staying in the EU.

As New York Times columnist Roger Cohen has put it, ‘a democracy that cannot change its mind is not a democracy.’ With that in mind, the current historical moment does not just provide a myriad of challenges for the UK and the EU at large; it also presents itself as a unique chance for strengthening democratic legitimation. It is an impetus to rethink the nature of democratic discourse and debate amidst the backdrop of a thoroughly mediatised public sphere. This is much more than an argument about the merits of rational deliberation. It is about admitting that another consultation is the best available option. Regardless of the concrete outcome of a second vote, the stakes are too high not to chance it.

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

Kilian Wirthwein Vega completed an MSc in Conflict Studies at the London School of Economics, and was Talentia Scholar for the MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy at the University of Oxford. His main research interests are institutional design and statebuilding.

Fabian Lucca Ferrari is a doctoral student at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. His research focuses on algorithmic power and the future of work.

This short article maintains that, in times of structural and persistent crisis, Europe needs to tackle the multiple challenges and existential fears by cultivating a strong and dynamical digital skills ecosystem, based on collective values and the fundamental liberal principles of co-creation, co-evolution, and collective intelligence (over against the obsolete principles of optimisation and top-down administration and control). This will arguably result in boosting innovation and, therefore, adaptiveness, as well as in translating technological progress into economic growth, and risks into opportunities for all citizens.

On 19 April 2016, the European Commission, under the leadership of Commissioner Oettinger, launched an ambitious strategy on digitising European industry. Mariya Gabriel, as current Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, is now responsible for its systematic implementation. This pertains to the first industry-related initiative of the Digital Single Market package, aimed to accelerate responsible and sustainable innovation, to boost productivity and economic growth, to fight social inequality, and to improve EU citizens’ living standards and job opportunities.

Nowadays, the spread of digital technology and Industry 4.0 (representing the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is rapidly changing the structure, nature, character and dynamics of communication, consumption, production, employment and learning within the European Union and worldwide, leading to novel types of jobs and novel types of education (i.e. Education 4.0). But it is also leading to the vital and urgent need for every European citizen to have at least basic and transversal digital literacy skillsin order to live, share, communicate, work, learn and actively participate in the contemporary speedy, complex, hyper-connected and increasingly knowledge-based society.

Digital literacy skills include information literacy skills, media literacy skills, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) literacy skills. Interestingly, information, media, and technology skills constitute a strong and integral part of the new framework for the twenty-first-century learning paradigm, according to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). In general, this learning paradigm helps us energetically navigate our future and decisively dispel “old”, “received” or “traditional” dichotomies, like those pertaining to the content vs. skills debate.

Most importantly, European societies must build a new, dynamic educational system that prepares citizens for creative work and nonlinear career paths, as well as for the new phase of digital globalisation (i.e. Globalisation 4.0), in which our current institutions and jobs will fundamentally change. Procedural and rule-based work is now being robotised and automated, thus leading many people to update their digital skills, perceived as the global currency of 21stcentury economies, and change their professional trajectories (mainly oriented toward the information- and knowledge-creating sector). To put it sharply, technology is rewriting society’s rules.

Hence, education tends to become less standardised and more personalised (education anywhere and anytime), with special emphasis on creativity, collaboration, knowledge production and sharing, complex problem solving, flexibility, innovation, adaptiveness, resilience, and leadership skills. New digital skills, which variously mix hard skills (ones that are more tangible, measurable and quantifiable) and soft skills (ones that enable people to be flexible, cooperative, creative, empathic and adaptable in different roles or in different career fields), can turn participatory information platforms, the emerging Internet of Things (i.e. Post-Internet) and the Spatial Web (Web 3.0) into an opportunity for everyone.

Greece, which still has a very low score on the DESI(26th in DESI 2017 & 2018), is now following the European Commission, in particular the framework of the New Skills Agenda for Europe and the Grand Coalition(promisingly inaugurated on 10 June 2016), in promoting a large variety of initiatives aimed at increasing training in digital skills for the workforce, for education, for ICT professionals, and for democratic citizenship (see http://www.nationalcoalition.gov.gr/).

This mainly involves a comprehensive and multi-level national plan which actively engages both the public and the private sector, aiming at mobilising various agencies and resources for consciousness-raising, civic education, training and adult learning, as well as for analysing skills needs and for validating skills. The implementation of an effective digital agenda for crisis-ridden Greece will arguably encourage investments and help the productivity and the competitiveness of the country, thus discouraging the so-called “brain drain”of valuable talent abroad.

In the new Janus-faced era of radical futures, global existential risks, information filters, computational clouds, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, liberal democracies require a shared culture of citizenship skills, responsible knowledge, progress and truth. Above all, they require close collaboration between stakeholders (at a global level) and between experts and nonexperts, as well as participative smart citizens armed with technical, social and political know-how, in order to reject hate speech and defend truth and collective values over against the large volumes of manipulative disinformation and “fake news”(the so-called information disorders). In particular, collective values constitute a valuable source for shared prosperity in the 21stcentury.

What is thus urgently needed, is to take a radically new path and organise an open and inclusive public debate about where we want to go in the digital age. To upgrade both humanism (humanism 2.0) and democracy (democracy 2.0), as well as to reach the next level of digital society, that is, a new network ecology, we must build a strong digital skills ecosystem, as a basic human right, common good, and public good (everyone can have access and get benefit from them). That is, a new dynamical ecosystem based on the fundamental liberal principles of co-creation, co-evolution, and collective intelligence (over against the obsolete principles of optimisation and top-down administration and control).

Digital skills education should hence be solidly based on a consensus-oriented and, therefore, other-regarding decision-making tradition. Opening up spaces of public dialogue is of utmost importance. The new education project should properly prepare citizens with a range of alternatives, intervention points, a map of powerful actors and frameworks of critique. It should also offer public participatory opportunities, which can boost collective digital intelligenceand create new value, individual happiness, pluralism, decentralisation, transparency, accountability, trust, open institutions and social capital.

Bridging and linking social capital, which must be combined with strong human capital and inclusive institutional capital, is the fundamental basis of social and economic well-being, not only at national level, but also at European level. That is why we need to link digital skills with an agreed set of values, principles and rules, such as diversity and non-discrimination, freedom and informational self-determination, participation and awareness, fairness and responsibility, resilience and sustainability.

All in all, value-informed digital citizenship skills will help us effectively face up and tackle adverse and nonlinear political developments, such as populism, polarisation and extremism. But this also requires the EU’s democratic system as a whole to proactively overcome its very real shortcomings. We can thus steer Europe towards a new unprecedented era of shared prosperity.

Such a political vision arguably calls upon us to update Aristotle, that is, to radically move from knowledge and skills toward digital sophrosyne, i.e. a deep awareness of one’s digital self, and digital phronesis, i.e. digital practical wisdom, the habit of making the right decisions and taking the right actions in the digital context. This would probably link technology with virtue.

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

In January 2018, I joined a team of researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE) who were starting to work on a project about the local-level impact of Britain’s departure from the European Union in five British local authorities. We set ourselves a double challenge: firstly, we wanted to understand why people voted the way they did in those five areas in the 2016 EU referendum, in light of the local context and the issues that were considered politically significant locally. Secondly, we wanted to do a little experiment: If we produced a report about the impacts of Brexit that was locally relevant, combining the results of existing quantitative studies with the evidence collected through our own field work in each local authority, would it be possible to bring Leavers and Remainers together in one room and spark a forward-looking, evidence-based discussion about Brexit within each local community?

Mansfield is a town of about 100,000 inhabitants in Nottinghamshire. For most of the twentieth century, Mansfield was one of the major and most productive centres of coal mining in the region. However, in the late 1980s and 1990s most of the pits in Mansfield and the surrounding area closed down, while other traditional sectors, such as textiles and engineering, also faced a steep decline. Ever since, Mansfield has been undergoing a painful process of industrial restructuring, and has experienced a significant increase in low value-added, low-paid service sector employment. In the social mobility index compiled by the British government’s Social Mobility Commission, Mansfield and two of its neighbouring local authorities occupy three of the ten bottom places of the index, ranked 315, 317 and 323 respectively. These developments contribute in a powerful way to a sense of being left behind by the UK’s current economic model, which heavily relies on linkages with global markets.

In the 2016 EU referendum, Mansfield voted 70.9% Leave: it was the seventh highest percentage in favour of Leave out of 382 UK local authorities. Our interviewees in Mansfield describe the local referendum campaign as a ‘one-issue debate: It was all about immigration’. While the backlash against immigration is often explained as a cultural reaction against social change, one of our central arguments is that at least in Mansfield, it also has an underpinning economic element. Specifically, the reaction of the local community against the arrival of Eastern European immigrants in the early 2000s, is an aspect of a broader reaction against the spread in the area of a type of business model that relies on low-skilled, low-paid labour recruited on zero-hour contracts via agencies. Moreover, even the cultural reaction against the visible manifestations of the new immigrant community – the Eastern European stores, restaurants, barber shops – would probably be more limited if the indigenous population was engaging in new types of economic activities that generated a similar sense of ownership and pride as mining did in the past. In the words of a long-time councillor in neighbouring Ashfield, ‘what is it – 30 years since the mines closed? And we still haven’t got it right. The big problem we have in Ashfield and Mansfield is we don’t have an identity.’

Local impacts of Brexit in Mansfield

Due to the restrictions that are likely to be placed on the free movement of labour, leaving the EU will probably deal a blow to businesses that employ large numbers of low-paid agency workers, some of whom are immigrants. However, this does not mean that the activities of these businesses will be automatically replaced with better-paid and more satisfactory jobs for the local population. On the contrary, Brexit in itself will solve none of the underlying structural problems of Mansfield’s economy, and may actually exacerbate some of the challenges that high value-added firms face in the area, especially by reducing their ability to find skilled workers. Moreover, the EU currently provides a core part of the funding for regional development policies in the Mansfield area, subsidising precisely the types of activities that can promote development along a higher value-added path, such as training and start-up support programmes. As a net contributor to the EU budget, the UK will in theory have the means to replace those programmes, but in practice, the British government’s historical reluctance to fund stable, long-term regional development programmes with a strong role for local stakeholders in the planning and implementation stages, creates reasons for concern.

Our interviews also reveal that even the most convinced Leavers do not expect that trade with the EU will actually decline after Brexit – the rationale that ‘people in Europe need us as much as we need them’ is deeply ingrained in people’s minds. A sudden increase in trade barriers therefore has the potential to inflict serious unexpected damage on the local economy, especially if it hurts strategically important sectors, such as high-end business services. Finally, the rise in inflation that has resulted from the devaluation of the pound, the increasingly acute staff shortages that the care sector has faced since the 2016 referendum, and the rise in food prices that may follow Britain’s withdrawal from the Common Agricultural Policy, all have the potential to hurt disproportionately the most vulnerable members of the Mansfield community.

Here a documentary film produced in October 2018 during the field work in Mansfield:Discussing Brexit in the local community

A few weeks ago we returned to Mansfield in order to discuss these findings with local stakeholders. We invited in a meeting about 15 representatives of local businesses and charities, civil servants, local politicians and journalists, circulated our case study report, and sparked a discussion about the likely impacts of Brexit in Mansfield, encouraging participants to make recommendations about how the town should make the most out of the situation.

This meeting was one of the most inspiring moments I have had in my short life as an academic. What was remarkable was that even though Brexit has become a signature issue in the UK, the participants in our meeting did not shield themselves behind their entrenched identities as Leavers or Remainers, but made suggestions that were forward-looking and constructive. It was agreed that the debate on immigration is a red herring: the real challenge in Mansfield to recover from the experience of deindustrialization and to create good jobs that people would be proud to do. As we listened to business representatives exchanging ideas with training providers about the future steps they can take towards that direction together, and to EU funding beneficiaries explaining to local politicians how a beneficial local development policy for Mansfield should look like, we left wondering whether, by bringing people together to have a grounded discussion about a topic that is usually considered to be a minefield, we may not have made a small difference.

This video captures the public discussion with local stakeholders (local politicians, business owner, representatives of business associations and journalists) that took place in Mansfield on 24 January 2019

For a long time Spain and Portugal have been considered exceptions within the European Union due to the lack of a far-right political party with representation in parliament. However, this situation is no longer the case in Spain due to the recent entrance of Vox in the Andalusian Parliament. Much has been written about Vox’s political nature, its electoral possibilities in the long-term,the reasons behind its upsurgeand how it changes the Spanish political landscape. This article will focus on the way in which the mainstream political media in Spain, El País and El Mundo, treated this party in terms of coverage. After briefly discussing the recent literature on far right and media coverage, we argue that Vox received outstanding media attention considering the scarce percentage of Spaniards who had considered to vote for it. First, we explain the dynamics of media attention to Vox both at the national and Andalusian electoral level and compare it with the voting intention for the party. Second, we compare the media attention received by Vox and a similar party in terms of voting intention and results in previous elections: the Animalist Party Against Mistreatment of Animals (PACMA). Last, we compare the coverage of Vox with the rest of the prominent parties at stake in the Andalusian Regional Election of December 2018.

How did the mainstream Spanish media treat Vox?

Academic literature(Norris, 2010; Beck et al. 2002) recognizes that mass media coverage has a significant role in electoral politics as it is the primary channel through which voters receive information about politicians and parties. Particularly, a stream of research focuses on how media visibility given to a political party positively influences public support of that party (Hopmann et al. 2010; Oegema & Kleinnijenhuis, 2010). In the context of populist right-wing parties, research in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany shows that party and leader visibility in the news have strong effects on anti-immigrant parties success, and not vice-versa (Vliegenthart, Boomgaarden, & Van Spanje, 2012). Furthermore, a study conducted in 2018 provided new evidence consistent with the idea that populist right-wing parties benefit from media saliency. Findings showed that extensive media coverage played a unique causal role in increasing support for UKIP (Murphy & Devine, 2018).

In this context, it is interesting to study how the Spanish media has treated the far right party Vox throughout its lifetime. Vox is not a new party in the Spanish panorama: it was founded in 2013 by members of the conservative Popular Party (PP) who accused their former party of being too centrist and not sufficiently defending the interests of Spain. The results of Vox were not promising until the last Andalusian regional elections in December. At the European Parliamentary Election of 2014, Vox reached an acceptable 1,57% of the votes, but did not achieve any seat. In these elections, the parties Podemos, founded in 2014, and Ciudadanos, recently introduced into the national electoral level at the time, got sizeable representation anticipating the end of the bipartidism in Spain after more than 30 years. However, Vox did not follow the wakeof these parties and obtained worse results: 0.45% of the votes in the 2015 regional elections of Andalucia; a 0.23% in the Spanish general elections of 2015; and a 0.2% in the repeat elections of June 2016. Given the previous lack of success of the party, the outstanding 10.97% result that Vox achieved in the December 2018 Andalusian regional elections have been received with surprise by most analysts and political parties. Its entrance in the regional parliament is further aggravated by current surveys indicating that Vox’s phenomenon is here to stay.

To analyze Vox media coverage, we have compiled all articles dealing with Vox in the most important newspapers of Spain –El País and El Mundo- during the last few years. The articles were downloaded from the online database Lexis Nexis. An initial search retrieved all articles in which the mention “Vox” appeared to be designated as the political party[1]. Figure 1 shows Vox monthly coverage from the Spanish general election in June 2016 to the Andalusian election in December 2018. As it can be seen figure 1, Vox reached a peak in October, when it managed to fill the pavilion of Vistalegre with more than 9.000 people. In the weeks following the event -until the beginning of November- this attention decreased but did not plummet to previous levels to the event. Later during November, Vox saliency rose again to levels unseen in previous coverage, explained mainly by an outstanding coverage related to the Andalusia Regional Elections campaign, as Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1. El Mundo & El País National Coverage

Moreover, we focus on the coverage that Vox obtained during the last regional elections in Andalusia. To this end, all the articles in 2018 in which the word “Vox” co-occurred with other terms related to “Andalucía” have been collected. As Figure 2 shows, it can be concluded that the Vox’s coverage increased dramatically since the meeting of Vistalegre and that the surveys were capable to capture partially the real voting intention of Vox, which was higher than the one predicted by most of the surveys.

Figure 2. El Mundo & El País Andalucía Coverage

Comparing Vox with PACMA

It is difficult to assess whether the coverage of a party has been striking or not by studying it in absolute terms without contrast for comparison. Thus, we have studied Vox coverage in comparative terms with the animalist party, PACMA. We argue that this political party stands as the ideal candidate to be compared with Vox because of the following:

Their percentages of votes in the last important elections are similar. As shown in Figure 3, Vox received more votes in the European Parliamentary Election but it was clearly surpassed by PACMA in the Spanish General Elections. We consider that the general elections are more representative for our analysis as they are not second-order elections and more people go to the polls on Election Day.

Figure 3. PACMA & Vox Election Results

The national voting intention of the two parties has been similar since the last general election to the voting intention of the Andalusians.

We have carried out the comparison on three levels. First, we have compared the level of attention between Vox and PACMA between the 2014 European Parliamentary Election and the 2016 Spanish General Election. In this period both parties displayed similar results; although PACMA was more successful in the general elections. However, as can be seen in figure 4, the attention that both parties received was starkly different for a long period of time. According to our results, Vox benefited from higher mainstream coverage.

Figure 4. PACMA & Vox National Coverage (2014-2016)

Second, we have compared Vox and PACMA from the Spanish General Elections of 2016 to the Andalusian Regional Elections of 2018. Since no data was available on relevant elections for our purposes[2], we have crossed the number of articles with the vote estimation that these parties obtained in the main surveys. Figure 5 shows that Vox had higher coverage than PACMA even when the difference of voting intention between the two parties was striking. When the voting intention of Vox increased, the difference of coverage between the parties rose. This difference is most evident in the months preceding the Andalusian Regional Elections.

After concluding that Vox did receive more national attention than a party similar in terms of voting intentions, we analyze the recent Andalusian elections in which Vox obtained representation for the first time. We have looked for all the articles in which the mention of one party[3]co-occurred with the mention of terms related to Andalucía. First, we show that Vox had outstandingly higher coverage than PACMA in figure 6:

Figure 6. El Mundo & El Pais National Coverage and Regional Surveys

Second, using the same technique, we have compared Vox with the main political parties running for the Andalusian Regional Elections. Figure 7 shows how Vox reached a large coverage, closer to the main parties than to smaller ones. It is important to keep in mind two things: 1) across the whole of the studied period, the surveys consistently reported Vox to have a considerably lesser percentage of votes than the main parties and 2) the main parties already had a presence in the Andalusian Parliament, getting a baseline media visibility related to their political activity in the Andalusian institutions.

Figure 7. El Mundo & El País Andalucía Coverage

Conclusion

After analyzing the coverage of Vox, we conclude that the party received more attention nationally than similar parties (PACMA) and an outstanding level of coverage when compared to the main political parties. There are many plausible reasons which might have caused this level of media attention, such as the fact that Vox benefited from a larger budget to carry out their electoral campaign or that news related to Vox may have received a higher level of attention by the public. Given that the relationship between voting for far-right parties and media coverage is a reality, we would like to 1) encourage further studies on the topic and 2) bring the attention to the role of media in electoral politics. As Murphy & Devine (2018) pointed out in their recent study, “if media coverage of political parties is driven by public support for the parties – even if media coverage then increases public support further – it could be argued that media outlets are facilitating popular sovereignty. On the other hand, if media coverage independently changes public support rather than reflecting it, this could potentially represent a point of distortion in the functioning of a democracy, depending on how we understand the role of journalism in democracies.”

[1]There were mentions of the idiomatic expression “Vox populi”, which were excluded from our sample.

[2]During 2017, Catalan elections took place. In those elections PACMA attained a 0.89% of the votes. However, the irrelevance of Vox in Catalonia makes it difficult to use this election as a measure of comparison.

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

Sergio Olalla Ubierna holds a master’s degree in Social and Public Communication fom the London School of Economics. His research focuses on media and public opinion.

J. Enrique Chueca Montuenga holds an MA in International Political Economy from King’s College London and has a BSc on Industrial Engineering with a minor on International Studies focused in economics from Carlos III of Madrid University. He has recently worked as a consultant on Energy for the Inter-American Development Bank and for the European Parliament on digital and industry regulation and innovation related issues.

Javier Padilla holds a dual bachelor in Law and Business from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and a master’s degree in philosophy and public policy at the London School of Economics. His research is focused on electoral behaviour, public opinion and the European political space.

According to Theresa May, the choice is between her deal, no deal or no Brexit. But the Labour leadership still seems to think that it can negotiate a more ‘sensible deal’. What on earth would a more ‘sensible’ deal look like and is it a sensible strategy for the Labour Party? Is not now the moment to abandon the soft Brexit position and to come out for remain and reform?

First of all, there is the problem of time. Theresa May has left us perilously close to the deadline of March 2019, perhaps deliberately hoping that the fear of no deal will enable her to garner sufficient parliamentary support for her deal. If Labour is to make the argument convincingly that the alternative is not “no deal”, the party has to explain how it will take over, either as a minority government or through a general election and negotiate a new deal in a few short weeks.

Even if the EU were to agree to further negotiations, is this feasible? Surely it would require an extension of Article 50 but would the EU agree to this on the basis of the further ‘purgatory’ of endless negotiations?

Overcoming polarisation?

Secondly, is there a more sensible deal that would meet Labour’s six tests and meet their stated goal of overcoming the polarisation between leavers and remainers? The agreement made by May with Brussels is not actually the deal. It is an agreement on the terms of withdrawal covering money, citizenship rights and the Northern Ireland border and a rather vaguely worded political declaration about the content of a future deal that would govern the relationship between the UK and the EU. Basically everything remains much the same during the transition period. The political declaration about the content of a final deal commits us to the single market and probably the customs union for goods, although there are caveats, but allows for future control of immigration and is rather vague about everything else. It is a bespoke framework that is close to the Norway and Switzerland options but with control of immigration.

How would Labour’s version be different? According to John McDonnell, it would involve a permanent customs union and more of the single market; it would mean a relationship that is closer to the EU than May’s deal. Such a deal would not meet Labour’s own six tests and would be no more popular than May’s deal.

The second of Labour’s six tests is that it must offer the ‘exact same benefits’ as our current membership. The main objection to Theresa May’s agreement would equally apply to an agreement negotiated by Labour. In both scenarios, we would have no say on the EU rules that we would then have to adopt, only some sort of ‘consultation’ might be allowed.

Such a deal might be marginally better than May’s deal for jobs, the NHS, the environment and for science and it would ensure that the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland would be kept open. But it would represent a huge diminution of sovereignty – less not more control – and would thus satisfy no one. It would rule out the possibility of contributing to desperately needed European reforms, thus committing us to neoliberal rules in perpetuity. Indeed what is weird about Labour’s insistence on the Customs Union is that it is the most neo-liberal part of the EU architecture.

Ambiguity is just not possible now

Third, will Labour get a chance to renegotiate a more ‘sensible’ deal? Will there be a minority government or a general election? Will May survive a vote of no confidence? May’s deal like the Chequers deal is hugely unpopular; there is a hardening of both remain and leave positions and neither side supports the deal.

Even if such a deal got through Parliament as a result of support from Tory soft Brexiteers, it would weaken Labour’s electoral position. Despite Theresa May’s lamentable performance, Labour is still neck and neck with the Tories in the polls. Such a deal will not win back the hard core leave voters who switched first to UKIP and then to the Conservatives in recent elections, any more than Ed Miliband’s commitment to the ‘controls on immigration’ won him back voters from the Conservatives. The Tories are just more convincing on Brexit and control of immigration – these are right-wing issues.

To win, Labour needs to capture the remain vote that is currently despairing about the Government yet disaffected with Labour’s stance on Brexit. Labour’s ambiguity on Brexit may have helped during the 2017 election because it allowed both leavers and remainers to assume that Labour was on their side; that ambiguity is just not possible now.

Remain and reform

So what alternative could Labour offer to May’s deal, other than ‘no deal’, given the constraints on time and the difficulty of finding a compromise between leavers and remainers?

In the end, the best option is ‘remain and reform’. We need to keep our close relationship with the EU for a host of reasons – jobs, Northern Ireland, climate change, security or research and universities. But if we are to address the real concerns of the leave voters we need to be inside the EU campaigning for a change of rules.

It is beyond absurd that a constitutional decision of this importance should be taken on the basis of negotiations within the Tory party and with the EU. There needs to be a genuine constitutional debate throughout the country – a debate about the kind of society we want to live in and how to tackle the deep seated problems linked to jobs, housing, health, and, above all, democracy that led to the howl of anguish represented by the Brexit vote. There has to be a debate on the European mainland as well. Europeans are facing many of the same problems and reforming the European Union has to be part of the agenda.

Of course there needs to be a public vote to reverse the decision to leave but it needs to be part of a far-reaching deliberative exercise in both Britain and mainland Europe.

The huge demonstration for a People’s Vote on October 20 and the continued protests represent a social movement in the making. The overwhelming majority of Labour members are pro-remain; many of the marchers were Labour and there were clear left messages on the march, if not on the platform. This is Labour’s opportunity. It could be leading this new social movement and linking it directly to the legitimate concerns of leave voters and it could be leading the campaign against the rise of fascism across the whole of Europe. This is the moment when Labour needs to call for the extension of Article 50 and a UK wide and Europe-wide debate.

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The London Borough of Barnet is one of the five local authority areas selected for the LSE project ‘Understanding Brexit impacts at a local level’, coordinated by the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit. The reports contextualise the Brexit impact studies carried out at a national level with qualitative evidence collected at the local level.

Barnet, ‘a leafy London suburb’, as some residents like to call it, is the highest populated London borough, with an economy reliant on retail, professional and health services, all sectors which tend to employ high numbers of migrant workers. Barnet is a multicultural area, known to have the highest Jewish population in England and other sizable ethnic minority groups from both EU and non-EU countries. One in ten Barnet residents comes from another EU country. Dhingra et al (2017) predicted that urban areas in London and the South of England, such as Barnet, will feel a stronger negative impact of Brexit than other areas, under all Brexit scenarios.

The Barnet report details two broad impacts of Brexit: on public services and local businesses. The insights from interviews with Barnet residents mirror the results from national level studies. There are concerns around recruitment and retention of non-UK EU staff working in Barnet’s public services; the local residents consulted tend to agree that Brexit could exacerbate existing staff shortages in Barnet. Also, in line with previous findings from research at a national level, those consulted for the report pointed out how businesses may be negatively affected, particularly if Brexit has a negative impact on household income and Barnet residents spend less in the local economy, in particular eating out and other non-essential expenses.

To minimise the potential negative impacts, local residents suggested increasing spending on public services and improving work conditions in order to retain existing staff and encourage more British-born people to apply for these types of jobs. Securing close economic links with the EU was seen as important to maintain a similar level of local spending which underpins local businesses in Barnet. Finally, all those consulted agreed that securing the rights of EU migrant staff working across sectors in Barnet is key to minimising staff shortages.

Some possible positive impacts of Brexit were also identified. The most commonly mentioned impact was the likelihood of increased wages for British workers in lower paid sectors. According to the local residents mentioning this impact, a lower number of EU migrants competing for jobs in cleaning, construction, hospitality and other areas of usually low paid work, could mean that employers will have to pay higher wages to find workers to fill in the vacancies. Others saw the benefit for local business if the UK signed favourable trade deals with countries outside the EU, although there was scepticism as to whether these expected positive impacts of Brexit can be materialised in full given the perceived slow progress of the Brexit negotiations.

The Barnet report was launched at Patisserie Joie de Vie on 28 September, accompanied by a discussion with local residents, including business owners. The first part of the discussion focussed on local services and the LSE team heard testimonies from the local residents present regarding their use of public services in Barnet and how they expect Brexit could impact healthcare, social care and education. In the second part of the roundtable discussion, residents detailed the themes emerging about local business in the context of Brexit. Some participants owned businesses, including our host for the evening, who invested in two patisseries in Barnet. The third and final part of the discussion asked the question of what can be done at the local level and, although the residents had various suggestions, they all agreed that Barnet Council needs to prepare for all Brexit scenarios and inform its residents accordingly. Some felt Brexit was not seen as a priority at the local level. ‘Brexit is seen as a national issue, while, in fact, it has real local impacts’, commented one of the business owners.

Participants underlined the importance of bringing people together at the local level to discuss issues impacting them directly. This resonates with the goal of the project which aims to incorporate feedback received from citizens, business people, representatives of civil society and policy makers. We are planning to revisit Barnet and the other case-studies and update reports in a sort of reflective and participative research process. In addition, as the Barnet report is a ‘live report’, comments and suggestions collected via the Generation Brexit platform dedicated to Brexit and Barnet will be taken into account in future iterations of the report. This online platform adds the young people’s voice in the discussion, a demographic which was perhaps underrepresented in the first stage of data collection at the local level. The platform has the potential to bring in ideas of practical steps which can be taken to mitigate potential impacts of Brexit, which have not been covered in the report, and which concern younger residents: ‘The government should work with universities to create policies that would encourage more students to go into these fields [health and social care]. These can include tuition benefits or scholarships’ (contribution on Generation Brexit). Young Barnet residents can register for free and add their views to the discussion here.

The reluctance of Eurosceptic politicians and local stakeholders to participate in our research is another interesting finding in the Barnet case study. Those who believed Brexit was negative for Barnet were much more prone to engage with us. Despite our repeated efforts to invite local residents and people’s representatives offering a more optimistic angle on the consequences of Brexit, we did not manage to get a balanced representation in our study. This could partly be due to the fact more than 60% of Barnet residents voted to Remain in the EU in 2016. In other case studies, such as Mansfield and Pendle we have been more successful in engaging with those who perceive Brexit more as an opportunity than as a threat. However, the perceived higher level of scepticism vis-à-vis academic research on the topic of Brexit among those who defend a leave position is a hypothesis that may be worth exploring further. We hope that our approach, which creates a space for constructive discussion on the impacts of Brexit at local level and how to better deal with them, contributes to empowering citizens while reducing polarisation and distrust on expert evidence.

This video captures the public discussion with local stakeholders that took place in Barnet in Sepetember 2018:

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

Alexandra Bulat is a PhD candidate at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL and co-author of the LSE Barnet report. Her research focuses on attitudes towards EU migrants in the UK, comparing two local authority areas, Newham and Tendring. Alexandra tweets @alexandrabulat.

The aftermath of 2018 Italian elections has turned into a political reality show powered by the media system. Centre stage stands Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League, who became deputy prime minister, Interior minister and the de facto head of government. At his side is the other deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, leader of the Five Stars Movement and Welfare minister. Anything that Salvini and Di Maio say instantly becomes the object of analysis, comment and outrage amongst an increasingly crowded audience.

In Italy, whether you are sipping coffee at the bar or driving your car listening to any radio station you will inevitably hear the latest statements of the two leaders treated as the most important news of the hour. The same goes for national and local televisions, whose schedules are full of shows focused on the core issues of the two government parties: immigration, crime and the privileges of politicians. This priority news organisations accord to any utterance of these two politicians is shared by online news outlets, the press, and of course social media, the preferred communication channel of this new politics. An invasion of words and images in the middle of everyday life, that leaves little time to reflect on the ongoing change.

Everyone in Italy, apparently, is involved in this conversation. Supporters and opposers, actors and pundits, journalists and churchmen, old politicians and European statesmen. Everyone is engaged in a frenetic exercise since both Salvini and Di Maio speak at every hour of the day and intervene in any topic of domestic or international affairs. They dictate the agenda. Or rather, the public agenda is theirs. The consequence is that everyone in Italy is forced to speak for or against everything that Salvini and Di Maio say. You are a supporter or opponent in this bubble which leaves no space to find out what is real and what is fiction, what is politics and what is communication, what is an opportunity and what is a threat. Sometimes it seems that the League and the Five Stars Movement are acting both as government and opposition parties, so varied are their positions and extensive their visibility and so weak and diminutive the opposition.

It is this climate of permanent electoral campaigning that has normalised the expectation of a clash between Italy and EU on the next budget law. An intention deliberately immortalized by a picture portraying Mr Di Maio greeting a non-existent crowd from the balcony of the Prime Minister’s official venue in Rome. A perfect shot to feed the media bubble that surrounds Italian politics nowadays. Moreover, now this reality show is proving to be a critical turning point for the European Union as a whole, in view of the May 2019 vote. It would be wrong to think that the 2018 elections outcome represents an accident. It is similarly risky to assume that the strategy of Italy’s current government is oriented only to provocation, because it seems to remain so in tune with popular feeling.

That is why it’s worth answering the following question: what has inflated this bubble of brash words and mixed feelings, that is transforming Italy’s political landscape in a nationalist direction? There are three founding myths that have changed the attitude of many Italian citizens towards politics, the European integration process and the role of national identity during the last decade. They are the anti-political wave (2007), the advent of a pro-EU technocratic government (2011) and the refugee crisis (2015-2016).

In the eyes of many voters, the League and the Five Stars Movement seem to be the only parties to have listened to their request for help in these three periods. Three breaking points that also revealed a widespread crisis of the old political leaderships (in particular those of Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Renzi). Consequently, whether the current government succeed or fail in its objectives, and irrespective of arguments and deep differences between the populist parties, the old political landscape will hardly be restored.

So, the big story is not just the rise of a populist and nationalist leadership in Italy. The big story are the Italians themselves.

Mistrusting Politics

First of all, to find the trigger-word of the original ascent of the Five Stars Movement, we must understand the expression: la Casta. It’s a disparaging word to describe the political establishment as the privileged level of an exclusive caste social system. In Italy, this type of caste is linked to people and groups of people who held political power during the last decades.

It is an expression coined by two journalists of Corriere della Sera, the most authoritative Italian daily. In May 2007, Gian Antonio Stella and Sergio Rizzo collected their inquires and published a best seller called la Casta, in which they listed the many inefficiencies and privileges of Italian politicians. In a country that reads little, the book sold more than a million copies, has inspired other journalists and has fuelled lots of talk show discussions. Most importantly, it has provided a lexical framework for citizens disappointed by their representatives.

However, it was not the media that benefited from this campaign against the establishment, but a new political movement founded by a comedian, who had become the most influential blogger of the country. In September 2007, Beppe Grillo filled several Italian squares railing against the political ‘caste’ asking for a two-term limit for any elected office and a prohibition against holding office if convicted of a crime. The slogan was: ‘Fuck off!’. In that year, the Five Stars Movement did not yet exist. But this popular mobilization was the basis of its birth. The new populist force, all organized on the web, would make its debut in the 2013 general elections, to become the first party (25,56%) outside the main coalitions. In 2018, Grillo’s movement exceeded 32%.

What is important is that the Movement’s founding issue (the so-called antipolitica) is now a milestone of the new political season in Italy. La Casta means privileges, and it is unpopular. Cutting of pensions to old lawmakers still remains a recurrent theme on the political agenda, even if the savings are small. No politician wants, moreover, shows his official car: last spring, during the long consultations which led to the formation of the current government, for the first time all the Italian leaders reached the presidential palace on foot. Even using the State plane to attend the G8 summit became embarrassing for the Prime Minister.

The symbols of power have become unpopular on the right and on the left. But in recent years the caste ended up embodying more than one enemy, the political élite. For the Five Stars Movement (and consequently the League), the caste are also journalists, cosmopolitan intellectuals and institutions that do not defend the national interest. This discourse is fuelled by arguments against globalization and EU institutions.

Social Uncertainty

The second milestone of the new Italian populist and nationalist leadership is represented by events a few years back. When Mario Monti, a professor of Economics, replaced Berlusconi at the helm of the Italian government, Italy seemed to entre a period of catharsis. It was the fall of 2011. All the major parties decided to support the technocratic cabinet, called to approve a radical plan of social and economic reforms in order to avoid the Troika intervention by balancing the Italian budget and reducing the public debt.

In November 2011, it was said that the payment of public wages and pensions was at risk. During those difficult months, Italy was described as being on the brink of bankruptcy. And Berlusconi’s leadership, also weakened by a series of judicial inquiries, was accused of underestimating the effects of the financial crisis. Italy appeared as a new Greece, but too big to fail. For these reasons, the technocratic government had the support from Berlusconi’s party (Il Popolo della Libertà, center-right) and from the Democratic Party (centre-left). Adding other minor groups, it counted the support of 90% of the Parliament. The main opposition political forces were the Northern League, then a separatist party holding 4%, and the Five Stars Movement, that was still outside Parliament.

It can be said that in the long run the League and the Five Stars Movement have benefited from their role as opponents, building an effective rhetoric that identifies that period as a betrayal of national sovereignty. According to Mr Monti and his ministers, their action saved Italy and has made it a reliable partner for the international allies. But their government was soon labelled a commissioner imposed by the EU (especially by Germany), despite its backing by a very large parliamentary majority. The 2011 legacy has fuelled the discontent of Italians towards the European institutions and the so-called austerity economic policies.

Today no one but Monti defends the unpopular decisions of that government, that remained in office until spring 2013. No one remember that Monti was the first to really cut the costs of political ‘caste’: when he was PM he used to travel by train and demanded his ministers use old cars produced by Italian car manufacturers. On the contrary, everyone seems to remember that government for being too much pro-EU, too academic and not careful to the pauperization of the Italian families. Centre-right Berlusconi has long been talking about a coup against him, while centre-left Renzi used to define Monti a yes-man of Europe, even though both their parties shared Monti’s politics and paid a price for their support.

It is not a coincidence that revoking many measures implemented by the technocratic government is at the heart of the League and Five Stars Movement nationalist programs, even if it does not appear economically sustainable. For example, they proposed to deeply change the reform that increased the retirement age and the law that liberalized the opening of shops on Sundays. They may even abolish the constitutional balanced budget clause, which was approved by the Parliament in 2012. All projects and promises that challenge Brussels on the budget law seem to be vote-winners.

What is even more important is that the appointment of professor Monti as head of the Italian government, without calling new elections has fuelled the idea of a democratic betrayal, where the popular vote counts less than the EU institutions, the financial markets and bankers. An idea that has become very common through the Italian electorate that voted for the League and the Five Stars Movement. A sense of powerlessness that has increased the indignation towards the ‘caste’ of the traditional parties.

Resurgence of National Identity

If the technocratic government has strengthened mistrust of institutions, the new migration flows across the Mediterranean Sea have strengthened the demand for protection from the citizenry. A protection that was no longer offered by traditional parties. The League has got stronger precisely in this field: the immigration issue, linked to those of crime and terrorism, is what has enabled Salvini to transform an old regional party into a new nationalist one.

Italy pays a price for its bridge position in the middle of the Mediterranean. The country is one of the main access routes from Africa to Europe, like Spain and Greece, but also the most difficult to control. The Southern coasts of Italy have been the destination of periodical landings of tens of thousands of migrants since the Arab spring period. The arrivals, however, began to frighten the population during the 2015 crisis and beyond, although most of those people wanted to reach other European countries. Since then, immigration has been a favoured battleground in any local or national election.

This happened because Italy became a country of mass immigration very recently, but also because the flows of asylum seekers coincided with the global recession, with the increase in unemployment rates and with the wave of protest against the establishment. The political and media bubble has been flooded daily by images of migrants landing on Sicily’s shores or camped in the station squares in the North of Italy, as they try to reach France, Switzerland and Germany. In this situation, the League’s Italians First motto broke several taboos in a country that experienced the violence of Fascism. Four years ago, Salvini started talking about an invasion, that would threaten not only the security but also the traditional values of the Italian society. Although this definition was not justified by numbers, he managed to polarize the debate for or against immigration, for or against the national identity, and attune himself to a widespread popular grievance.

The progressive forces, that led the government from 2013 to 2018, paid for underestimating the demand of protection from the citizens. The same is happening to the European institutions, to which the current Italian government imputes the responsibility of the so-called invasion of foreigners. The threatened clash with the EU over the next budget law was preceded, last summer, by a clash on the distribution of new migrants among the various European countries. In the new nationalist and populist rhetoric, the two actions are intimately connected as they serve to coax Italians sense of pride: sovereignty means physical, cultural and political borders.

In conclusion, to understand the 2019 EU election campaign from an Italian point of view, it is necessary to take into account these three traumatic developments in Italy’s very recent history. They are a mix of League and Five Stars Movement political myths. But they can go beyond the fortunes of the two parties, that in fact are now under pressure from the EU and market forces, and may well pay a price for their excesses. Many Italians feel isolated and betrayed by a cosmopolitan elite they perceive as remote from their needs and daily experiences. They feel impoverished by pro-EU politics supported by that same elite. Finally, they feel threatened by globalization and the multiculturalism associated with this process of European integration. Borders are evoked and used to redeem these citizens, that according to populist and nationalist politicians coincide with all the Italian people.

It does not matter whether these fears are all real or not. These founding myths reshaped the party landscape, and they have deep roots in the political debate and in the daily media agenda. A bubble that can help explain some (if not all) causes of Italy’s resurgent nationalism.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

Alessandro Franzi is an Italian journalist who works for Rai national broadcast. He worked for several years for Italian news agency ANSA, writing about politics with particular interest in the Northern League and centre-right parties. He is the co-author of the ebook ‘il Militante’ on Matteo Salvini’s leadership. He holds a bachelor degree in History and is an MA Political Science candidate at the University of Milan with a thesis on Eurosceptic movements.

The new Italian government, formed by the Five Stars Movement and the League, also poses a challenge to the Catholic Church. However, it is not only its populist tones that create a division between State and religious powers, in a country where ecclesiastic hierarchies have always had a strong influence in decision making. The current battleground is the nationalist approach to immigration policies, a main pillar of the new government action. The official line of the Italian church, embodied by Pope Francis, insists on the evangelical duty of receiving people who cross the Mediterranean sea to reach Europe every week. The winners of the 2018 elections push in the opposite direction by pursuing restrictive policies.

According to Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, the far-right League leader and the de facto prime minister, Italy can not afford to let new migrants enter the country. He claims that there are too many as it is, and that they are changing the country’s traditional way of life. Salvini’s guiding principle is ‘Italians first’. Hence his first acts were to close national ports to NGO boats carrying victims of shipwrecks, and to promise to cut public funds for asylum seekers’ assistance. Italy’s goal is to force its EU partners to accept mandatory quotas of migrants by changing the so-called Dublin Regulation. This position is shared by both government parties because they are widely popular among voters, although the Five Stars Movement is a less compact party than the League and risks a split in the long term.

The conflict with the Church on immigration policies can either lead to a difficult compromise, or a political clash, bringing out traditionalist positions within the Catholic world. The Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) did not give any indication of a vote last March. This has been the case for several years. Since the fall of the Catholic mass party Democrazia Cristiana in 1994, the Church has sought a dialogue with both centre-right and centre-left governments on specific policies. In particular, there was a strong relationship with Silvio Berlusconi’s cabinets on ethical issues like the defence of the ‘traditional family’, and the ‘right to life’. Nevertheless, the Italian bishops did underline their positions in a series of official statements in view of the 2018 general election. The president of the Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, stated that Italy must “be pacified” in order to reduce “widespread social resentment” fueled by unemployment and international migration. The latter in particular has monopolised public debate. “Since its foundation” – Cardinal Bassetti stated during the plenary assembly of the Italian bishops, in January, “the Catholic Church has taken care of the poor and the forgotten people in total obedience to the Gospel, because it sees Christ in them”. This is at the heart of Pope Francis’ message, whose first visit outside Rome, in 2013, was to the small island of Lampedusa in the southernmost part of Italy where in the recent past thousands of immigrants have landed from Africa to reach EU countries. According to the Holy Father, welcoming refugees and immigrants escaping wars, violence and poverty is the moral duty of all Christians. And, moreover, “populism is not the solution” to the crisis of our time – a warning addressed to the US President, Donald Trump, but also to his European supporters such as Salvini, who are trying to form a transnational alliance for the 2019 EU elections.

The Church claims that it is necessary to build ‘bridges’ and to dialogue with different religions and ethnic groups, while the League and its European and domestic allies evoke the image of ‘walls’ through a strengthening of state and cultural borders. Some claim that the Catholic Church already represents a real opposition to populist leaders across Western countries, for as long as the current papacy lasts. In Italy, hundreds of Catholic parishes are mobilising to provide accommodation and education to new migrants. Several priests spoke out in public against Salvini and his actions, for instance when the new Interior minister suggested a census of the Roma population. It would be a mistake, however, to consider immigration a common political issue.

The outcome of the 2018 Italian elections and the subsequent government agreement between the Five Stars Movement and the League relegated the Church’s official line to the political minority. In March, the two government parties accounted for 50,1% of votes: the Five Stars Movement was at 32,7%, the League at 17,4%. Approval has increased after the government led by Giuseppe Conte, an almost unknown professor of law, took office in June 2. According to recent polls, jointly the two political forces are now closer to 60%, and Salvini’s party has reached at least 28% thanks to anti-immigration policies. This should not come as a surprise, because the fear of an ‘invasion’ has grown in recent years, a time when most of Italians citizens felt overlooked by European institutions and hard-hit by austerity policies, which fuelled a new patriotic rhetoric. The left-wing Democratic Party (dropped to 18%) paid the highest political price after being in charge of the Italian government for the last five years. The surprise is that in this scenario the Church’s voice may become “irrelevant” if it does not become louder in the political sphere, according to some prominent ecclesiastics close to the Pope.

Immigration is of course not only a problem of numbers. According to official data by the Ministry of Interior, the amount of people arriving to Italy has decreased by about 80% since the beginning of 2018, compared to the same periods in 2016 and 2017. This also led to a fall in arrivals to Europe after the 2015 emergency. Instead, immigration is a problem that plays out in the sphere of identity.

Nationalist politicians use religion to strengthen community membership, to evoke an ideal past, and to identify ‘others’ (such as Muslims). Salvini himself is not a practicing Catholic but he recently carried a rosary during some rallies and still campaigns to display crucifixes in all Italian public offices. He claims to be the defender of the Christian tradition and insists that he prefers the conservative Pope Benedict XVI to Pope Francis, as he considers the latter too globalist. The League leader wants to push the more traditionalist elements of the Church into the open, knowing that a relevant share of Catholics voted for his party, as underlined by an Ipsos study. It was not by chance that, having been in office for just a few days, Salvini met Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the more critical ecclesiastics under the current Pope. What seems certain is that religion has returned to being a major political theme in Europe and it is strengthening the political imaginary of the new nationalist parties – the same parties that are questioning EU solidarity. In Italy, the Church continues to support the Pope’s progressive actions. Instead, the opposite is taking place in a number of Eastern European countries, where religion is a prominent aspect of the rise of nationalism. In Viktor Orban’s Hungary, it is used it to justify the closure of the border. In Catholic Poland, the epicentre of this conservative counter-revolution, the Church is also in close ties to the anti-liberal government. In Poland, religion is instrumentalised as a way of reclaiming the ‘pride’ of a people often defeated by history, and to oppose Islamic immigration, against which the rosary was also brandished. Hungary and Poland are seen as political models by leaders like Salvini. All these are elements to be taken into consideration in view of the 2019 European elections, the first ones after the Brexit referendum. They will be an important turning point for the EU.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

Alessandro Franzi is a Milan-based journalist who works for Italian news agency ANSA. He writes about politics with particular interest in the Northern League and centre-right parties. He is the co-author of the ebook ‘il Militante’ on Matteo Salvini’s leadership. He holds a bachelor degree in History and he is an MA Political Science candidate at the University of Milan with a thesis on Eurosceptic movements.

These are dangerous times for democracy. Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and other places that once offered democratic hope are now, in varying degrees, falling into authoritarianism. Democracy is also in trouble in sturdier places.

In the United States, Donald Trump poses the greatest threat to the American constitutional order since Richard Nixon. And yet, despite the floundering first year and a half of Trump’s presidency, the opposition has yet to find its voice.

One might think that Trump’s inflammatory tweets, erratic behavior, and persistent disregard for democratic norms would offer the opposition an easy target. But it has not worked out this way. For those who would mount a politics of resistance, the outrage Trump provokes has been less energizing than paralyzing.

There are two reasons for the opposition’s paralysis. One is the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia. The hope that Mueller’s findings will lead to the impeachment of Trump is wishful thinking that distracts Democrats from asking hard questions about why voters have rejected them at both the federal and state level.

A second source of paralysis lies in the chaos Trump creates. His steady stream of provocations has a disorienting effect on critics, who struggle to discriminate between the more consequential affronts to democracy and passing distractions.

The Italian writer Italo Calvino once wrote, “I spent the first twenty years of my life with Mussolini’s face always in view.” Trump too is always in view, thanks partly to his tweets and partly to the insatiable appetite of television news to cover his every outrageous antic.

An economy of outrage

Moral outrage can be politically energizing, but only if it is channeled and guided by political judgment. What the opposition to Trump needs now is an economy of outrage, disciplined by the priorities of an affirmative political project.

What might such a project look like? To answer this question, we must begin by facing up to the complacencies of establishment political thinking that opened the way to Trump in the US and to right-wing populism in Britain and Europe.

The hard reality is that Donald Trump was elected by tapping a wellspring of anxieties, frustrations, and legitimate grievances to which the mainstream parties have no compelling answer.

This means that, for those worried about Trump, and about populism, it is not enough to mobilize a politics of protest and resistance; it is also necessary to engage in a politics of persuasion. Such a politics must begin by understanding the discontent that is roiling politics in the US and in democracies around the world.

The failure of technocratic liberalism

Like the triumph of Brexit in the UK, the election of Trump was an angry verdict on decades of rising inequality and a version of globalization that benefits those at the top but leaves ordinary people feeling disempowered. It was also a rebuke for a technocratic approach to politics that is tone deaf to the resentments of people who feel the economy and the culture have left them behind.

Some denounce the upsurge of populism as little more than a racist, xenophobic reaction against immigrants and multiculturalism. Others see it mainly in economic terms, as a protest against the job losses brought about by global trade and new technologies.

But it is a mistake to see only the bigotry in populist protest, or to view it only as an economic complaint. To do so misses the fact that the upheavals we are witnessing are a political response to a political failure of historic proportions.

The right wing populism ascendant today is a symptom of the failure of progressive politics. The Democratic Party has become a party of a technocratic liberalism more congenial to the professional classes than to the blue collar and middle class voters who once constituted its base. A similar predicament afflicted Britain’s Labour Party and led, following its defeat in the last general election, to the surprising election of anti-establishment figure Jeremy Corbyn as party leader.

The roots of the predicament go back to the 1980s. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had argued that government was the problem and that markets were the solution. When they passed from the political scene, the center-left politicians who succeeded them – Bill Clinton in the US, Tony Blair in Britain, Gerhard Schroeder in Germany – moderated but consolidated the market faith. They softened the harsh edges of unfettered markets, but did not challenge the central premise of the Reagan-Thatcher era – that market mechanisms are the primary instruments for achieving the public good. In line with this faith, they embraced a market-driven version of globalization and welcomed the growing financialization of the economy.

In the 1990s, the Clinton administration joined with Republicans in promoting global trade agreements and deregulating the financial industry. The benefits of these policies flowed mostly to those at the top, but Democrats did little to address the deepening inequality and the growing power of money in politics. Having strayed from its traditional mission of taming capitalism and holding economic power to democratic account, liberalism lost its capacity to inspire.

All that seemed to change when Barack Obama appeared on the political scene. In his 2008 presidential campaign, he offered a stirring alternative to the managerial, technocratic language that had come to characterize liberal public discourse. He showed that progressive politics could speak a language of moral and spiritual purpose.

But the moral energy and civic idealism he inspired as a candidate did not carry over into his presidency. Assuming office in the midst of the financial crisis, he appointed economic advisors who had promoted financial deregulation during the Clinton years. With their encouragement, he bailed out the banks on terms that did not hold them to account for the behavior that led to the crisis and offered little help for ordinary citizens who had lost their homes.

His moral voice muted, Obama placated rather than articulated the seething public anger toward Wall Street. Lingering anger over the bailout cast a shadow over the Obama presidency and would ultimately fuel a mood of populist protest that reached across the political spectrum – on the left, the Occupy movement and the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, on the right, the Tea Party movement and the election of Trump.

The populist uprising in the US, Britain, and Europe is a backlash against elites of the mainstream parties, but its most conspicuous causalities have been liberal and center-left political parties – the Democratic Party in the US, the Labour Party in Britain, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany, whose share of the vote reached a historic low in the last Federal election, Italy’s Democratic Party, whose vote share dropped to less than 20 per cent, and the Socialist Party in France, whose presidential nominee won only six per cent of the vote in the first round of last year’s election.

Rethinking progressive politics

Before they can hope to win back public support, progressive parties must rethink their mission and purpose. To do so, they should learn from the populist protest that has displaced them – not by replicating its xenophobia and strident nationalism, but by taking seriously the legitimate grievances with which these ugly sentiments are entangled. Such rethinking should begin with the recognition that these grievances are not only economic but also moral and cultural; they are not only about wages and jobs but also about social esteem.

Here are four themes that progressive parties need to grapple with if they hope to address the anger and resentments that roil politics today: income inequality; meritocratic hubris; the dignity of work; patriotism and national community:

Income inequality: The standard response to inequality is to call for greater equality of opportunity – retraining workers whose jobs have disappeared due to globalization and technology; improving access to higher education; removing barriers of race, ethnicity, and gender. It is summed up in the slogan that those who work hard and play by the rules should be able to rise as far as their talents will take them.

But this slogan now rings hollow. In today’s economy, it is not easy to rise. This is a special problem for the US, which prides itself on upward mobility. Americans have traditionally worried less than Europeans about inequality, believing that, whatever one’s starting point in life, it is possible, with hard work, to rise from rags to riches. But today, this belief is in doubt. Americans born to poor parents tend to stay poor as adults. Of those born in the bottom fifth of the income scale, 43 per cent will remain there, and only four per cent will make it to the top fifth. It is easier to rise from poverty in Canada, Germany, Sweden, and other European countries than it is in the US.

This may explain why the rhetoric of opportunity fails to inspire as it once did. Progressives should reconsider the assumption that mobility can compensate for inequality. They should reckon directly with inequalities of power and wealth, rather than rest content with the project of helping people scramble up a ladder whose rungs grow further and further apart.

Meritocratic hubris: But the problem runs deeper. The relentless emphasis on creating a fair meritocracy, in which social positions reflect effort and talent, has a corrosive effect on the way we interpret our success (or the lack of it). The notion that the system rewards talent and hard work encourages the winners to consider their success their own doing, a measure of their virtue – and to look down upon those less fortunate than themselves.

Those who lose out may complain that the system is rigged, that the winners have cheated and manipulated their way to the top. Or they may harbor the demoralizing thought that their failure is their own doing, that they simply lack the talent and drive to succeed.

When these sentiments coexist, as invariably they do, they make for a volatile brew of anger and resentment against elites that fuels populist protest. Though himself a billionaire, Donald Trump understands and exploits this resentment. Unlike Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who spoke constantly of “opportunity,” Trump scarcely mentions the word. Instead, he offers blunt talk of winners and losers.

Liberals and progressives have so valorized a college degree – both as an avenue for advancement and as the basis for social esteem – that they have difficulty understanding the hubris a meritocracy can generate, and the harsh judgment it imposes on those who have not gone to college. Such attitudes are at the heart of the populist backlash and Trump’s victory.

One of the deepest political divides in American politics today is between those with and those without a college degree. To heal this divide, Democrats need to understand the attitudes toward merit and work it reflects.

The dignity of work: The loss of jobs to technology and outsourcing has coincided with a sense that society accords less respect to the kind of work the working class does. As economic activity has shifted from making things to managing money, as society has lavished outsized rewards on hedge fund managers and Wall Street bankers, the esteem accorded work in the traditional sense has become fragile and uncertain.

New technologies may further erode the dignity of work. Some Silicon Valley visionaries anticipate a time when robots and artificial intelligence will render many of today’s jobs obsolete. To ease the way for such a future, they propose paying everyone a basic income. What was once justified as a safety net for all citizens is now offered as a way to soften the transition to a world without work. Whether such a world is a prospect to welcome or to resist is a question that will be central to politics in the coming years. To think it through, political parties will have to grapple with the meaning of work and its place in a good life.

Patriotism and national community: Free trade agreements and immigration are the most potent flashpoints of populist fury. On one level, these are economic issues. Opponents argue that free trade agreements and immigration threaten local jobs and wages, while proponents reply that they help the economy in the long run. But the passion these issues evoke suggests something more is at stake.

Workers who believe their country cares more for cheap goods and cheap labor than for the job prospects of its own people feel betrayed. This sense of betrayal often finds ugly, intolerant expression – a hatred of immigrants, a strident nationalism that vilifies Muslims and other “outsiders,” a rhetoric of “taking back our country.”

Liberals reply by condemning the hateful rhetoric and insisting on the virtues of mutual respect and multicultural understanding. But this principled response, valid though it is, fails to address an important set of questions implicit in the populist complaint. What is the moral significance, if any, of national borders? Do we owe more to our fellow citizens than we owe citizens of other countries? In a global age, should we cultivate national identities or aspire to a cosmopolitan ethic of universal human concern?

These questions may seem daunting, a far cry from the small things we discuss in politics these days. But the populist uprising highlights the need to rejuvenate democratic public discourse, to address the big questions people care about, including moral and cultural questions.

Revitalizing public discourse

Any attempt to address such questions, to reimagine the terms of democratic public discourse, faces a powerful obstacle. It requires that we rethink a central premise of contemporary liberalism. It requires that we question the idea that the way to a tolerant society is to avoid engaging in substantive moral argument in politics.

This principle of avoidance – this insistence that citizens leave their moral and spiritual convictions outside when they enter the public square – is a powerful temptation. It seems to avoid the danger that the majority may impose its values on the minority. It seems to prevent the possibility that a morally overheated politics will lead to wars of religion. It seems to offer a secure basis for mutual respect.

But this strategy of avoidance, this insistence on liberal neutrality, is a mistake. It ill-equips us to address the moral and cultural issues that animate the populist revolt. For how is it possible to discuss the meaning of work and its role in a good life without debating competing conceptions of the good life? How is it possible to think through the proper relation of national and global identities without asking about the virtues such identities express, and the claims they make upon us?

Liberal neutrality flattens questions of meaning, identity, and purpose into questions of fairness. It therefore misses the anger and resentment that animate the populist revolt; it lacks the moral and rhetorical and sympathetic resources to understand the cultural estrangement, even humiliation, that many working class and middle class voters feel; and it ignores the meritocratic hubris of elites.

Donald Trump is keenly alive to the politics of humiliation. From the standpoint of economic fairness, his populism is fake, a kind of plutocratic populism. His health plan would have cut health care for many of his working class supporters to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthy. But to focus solely on this hypocrisy misses the point.

When he withdrew the US from the Paris climate change agreement, Trump argued, implausibly, that he was doing so to protect American jobs. But the real point of his decision, its political rationale, was contained in this seemingly stray remark: “We don’t want other countries and other leaders to laugh at us anymore.”

Liberating the US from the supposed burdens of the climate change agreement was not really about jobs or about global warming. It was, in Trump’s political imagination, about averting humiliation. This resonates with Trump voters, even those who care about climate change.

For those left behind by three decades of market-driven globalization, the problem is not only wage stagnation and the loss of jobs; it is also the loss of social esteem. It is not only about unfairness; it is also about humiliation.

Mainstream liberal and social democratic politicians miss this dimension of politics. They think the problem with globalization is simply a matter of distributive justice; those who have gained from global trade, new technologies, and the financialization of the economy have not adequately compensated those who have lost out.

But this misunderstands the populist complaint. It also reflects a defect in the public philosophy of contemporary liberalism. Many liberals distinguish between neo-liberalism (or laissez-faire, free market thinking) and the liberalism that finds expression in what philosophers call “liberal public reason.” The first is an economic doctrine, whereas the second is a principle of political morality that insists government should be neutral toward competing conceptions of the good life.

Notwithstanding this distinction, there is a philosophical affinity between the neo-liberal faith in market reasoning and the principle of liberal neutrality. Market reasoning is appealing because it seems to offer a way to resolve contested public questions without engaging in contentious debates about how goods are properly valued. When two people make a deal, they decide for themselves what value to place on the goods they exchange.

Similarly, liberal neutrality is appealing because it seems to offer a way of defining and justifying rights without presupposing any particular conception of the good. But the neutrality is spurious in both cases. Markets are not morally neutral instruments for defining the common good. And liberal public reason is not a morally neutral way of arriving at principles of justice.

Conducting our public discourse as if it were possible to outsource moral judgment to markets, or to procedures of liberal public reason, has created an empty, impoverished public discourse, a vacuum of public meaning. Such empty public spaces are invariably filled by narrow, intolerant, authoritarian alternatives – whether in the form of religious fundamentalism or strident nationalism.

That is what we are witnessing today. Three decades of market-driven globalization and technocratic liberalism have hollowed out democratic public discourse, disempowered ordinary citizens, and prompted a populist backlash that seeks to cloth the naked public square with an intolerant, vengeful nationalism.

A vacuum of public meaning

To reinvigorate democratic politics, we need to find our way to a morally more robust public discourse, one that honors pluralism by engaging with our moral disagreements, rather than avoiding them.

Disentangling the intolerant aspects of populist protest from its legitimate grievances is no easy matter. But it is important to try. Understanding these grievances and creating a politics that can respond to them is the most pressing political challenge of our time.

This lecture draws upon material from my articles “Lessons from the Populist Revolt,” Project Syndicate and ‘Populism, Liberalism, and Democracy,”’ Philosophy and Social Criticism (2018). It was given at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna last month.

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of the London School of Economics.

Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, and the author, most recently, of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. His new video series, “What Money Can’t Buy,” is available here.